Friday, September 21, 2007

Burley comes to play, shocks WRHS in five

Defense gives Bobcats the upper hand


By JEFF CORDES
Express Staff Writer

Wood River senior Hannah Ward hammers a winner toward Burley?s Katelin Robins Tuesday night in Hailey. Photo by David N. Seelig

The south court at Hailey's Wood River High School gymnasium was the place to succeed Tuesday night when the Burley Bobcats and Wood River Wolverines clashed in an absolutely thrilling Great Basin Conference West prep volleyball match.

Pounding and tipping balls at each other for two hours and 10 minutes, the protagonists in last year's Great Basin West tournament championship match , which was won by Wood River in the three-game minimum, pulled out all the stops and went to the five-game maximum in a true white knuckler.

Whichever team played on the south court won the game Tuesday and Burley was stationed there three times. Playing great defense and hitting well, the Bobcats (5-4, 3-0 league) shocked Wood River 25-21, 24-26, 25-17, 25-27, 15-10.

"That's the first time in 14 tries that Burley has beaten us while I've been coaching," said sixth-year Wood River coach Tim Richards. "Burley played good defense but we just didn't play very well—too many receiving, passing and hitting errors. We played their game."

Senior co-captain Hannah Ward (16 kills, 5 service winners, 4 blocks for points) and 6-2 senior Lauren Morgenthaler (16 kills, 15 service winners) had huge nights for Wood River. Also playing well were junior Angela Coleman (5 kills, 8 service winners) and senior co-captain Hannah Gove (5 kills, 7 service winners).

The Wolverines (6-5 overall, 1-1 league) had to quickly regroup and prepare for league road matches against Minico Thursday at Rupert and at Jerome Tuesday, Sept. 25. Wood River will face Burley again Oct. 9 in Burley.

Tuesday's outcome was reminiscent of last fall when the Wolverines went down to Burley and rallied past the Bobcats in five. Wood River played seven more matches against league foes and never lost a game including the 25-14, 25-13, 25-19 tournament title match over Burley.

Could Burley run the table in 2007? If coach Tiffany Green's Bobcats play as consistently well as they did Tuesday in Hailey, it could happen.

Burley has now beaten Jerome and Minico in four games, and Wood River in five, giving Burley the upper hand to grab the top seed and thus host the Great Basin West tournament Oct. 15.

Led by returning Great Basin All-Star first-teamers Alex Haynie (12 kills) and setter Katelin Robins (25 assists, 6 kills, 14 service winners), both seniors, the Bobcats kept the ball in play and seemed to return everything Wood River threw at them.

The exhausting long points, and there were many Tuesday, went to Wood River early and Burley later in the match. Richards said, "We weren't as aggressive as Burley was."

Other big factors for Burley were junior Carli Parish (14 kills, 12 digs, 8 service points) and junior Molly Mills (9 kills, 6 service winners).

Wood River just didn't have enough finishing power but the Wolverines got significant contributions from 11 players as coach Richards worked on his combinations. He said, "We played everybody trying to find someone to step up."

Morgenthaler pounded six kills in the second game as Wood River squandered a 16-8 lead and held on for the 26-24 victory on Ward's kill, from junior setter Haleigh Hall.

With their backs to the wall in the fourth game, Wood River fell behind 9-1 but rallied on the serving of Morgenthaler (7 winners, 3 kills) and the hitting of Ward (6 kills). Wood River went ahead 24-19 and fought off a frightening Burley rally before prevailing 27-25 on Coleman's clutch kill to stay alive for one more.

But Burley came to play and brought its "A" game. The tight Bobcat defense stopped Wood River from gaining any momentum on its serve. Burley pecked away on Katelin Robins' serving in the decisive fifth game 15-10 Bobcat victory.

When he went to the bench, which he did often, coach Richards got nice contributions from Carly Ballantyne and Hanna Gustafson. Junior Kylie Anderson did well at libero and Haleigh Hall showed promise with more minutes at setter.

"Haleigh stepped up and did a nice job for us," he said.




 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.